BART Officer’s Murder Trial Nears a Climax

Posted on Jun 27, 2010

Oscar Grant was killed on New Year’s Day 2009 in Oakland by a white transit police officer in a case that has drawn comparisons to the notorious Rodney King case in Los Angeles. The trial of the BART officer on a murder charge was moved to L.A., where the jury could start deliberations this week.—JCL

Los Angeles Times:

The grainy videos of the killing have been played over and over in a Los Angeles courtroom.

On two large television screens, a white transit police officer is shown reaching for his holster as he struggles with a black man lying face-down on an Oakland train station platform. The officer draws his handgun and fires a single bullet into the man’s back.

The images, captured by witnesses, lie at the center of a rare criminal trial in which a police officer is charged with murder for an on-duty shooting. The jury, which could begin deliberating as early as this week, must decide whether the shooting was intentional or, as the officer contends, a tragic mistake.